laudable Practice

Advent Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast of St Andrew, whether before or after - from ' Tables and Rules for the Moveable and Immoveable Feasts ' in the BCP 1662. Where does St Andrew's Day appear in the sanctoral?  In most contemporary Anglican calendars it is the last feast of the Christian year.  But not so in the Prayer Book tradition.  Here St Andrew's Day is the first feast of the Christian year, the first collect, epistle and gospel we find when we turn to the saints' days. This little practice has meaning and significance as we prepare to enter into Advent (or, in some years, when we are in the first days of Advent). St Andrew is the one who in the Gospel of St John heeds the witness of the Baptist to the Advent of the Lord, "Behold the Lamb of God!". In the synoptic tradition - and Matthew provides the Gospel reading for St Andrew's Day at the Holy Communion - Andrew, with Peter, James and John, "straightway...

This year Advent is very short. It begins on the evening of Saturday, 1 December, and lasts barely three weeks, so we must make the most of it. Here in the monastery, Advent is eagerly anticipated. We relish the simplicities of the season. These words from Digitalnun are a quite beautiful reminder of the gift of Advent simplicity.  There is a temptation to crowd the liturgy in Advent - to make it 'fussy', filling it with additional devotions or practices.  Amidst the busy social and commercial demands of these weeks, however, it is the simplicities of the liturgy which can be most compelling This is what we see in a Prayer Book Advent.  Apart from the daily praying of the Advent collect, no additional devotions or practices crowd the liturgy.  By contrast, consider the extensive provision and multiple options provided by the CofE's Times and Seasons for Advent.  The concern here is not 'only' with aesthetics.  The concern is also theological....

There is a comprehensiveness to the time-tried Anglican path that engages the larger cultural, political and public spheres, hence the magisterial-kingdom aspect of Anglicanism - if this element of Anglicanism is ignored or marginalized, a serious domesticating and thinning out of the Anglican heritage occurs. Ron Dart The North American High Tory Tradition , p.229. (The picture is of a stained glass window in the Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario - one of a series of windows celebrating Canadian Anglican pioneers.  This window shows Loyalists settling in Canada after the Revolutionary War.  Bishops Charles Inglis and James Stewart look on, symbolising their role in the establishment of Anglicanism in British North America, shaping culture and polity.)

And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm; some following Salisbury Use, some Hereford Use, and some the Use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one Use - ' Concerning the Service of the Church ', BCP 1662 The King's Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction - Article XXXVII Close to the heart of Anglicanism is the idea of the "particular or national Church" (Article XXXIV).  The Anglican experience emerges from and is shaped by the experience of one such "particular or national Church", this experience giving rise to other particular or national Churches, receiving its wisdom, living i...

... as the School-authors say - Article XIII ... as all the Schoolmen do - An Homily of Repentance , Part II When the Anglican formularies, echoing other expressions of the Reformation, critique the 'Schoolmen', is it not another expression of rupture?  The Schoolmen, after all, represented a noble development in theological inquiry and teaching in the medieval Latin West, responding creatively to a new philosophical context. Against this, the Reformation invocation of Scripture against the Schoolmen, and the broadsides against their engagement with philosophy, can appear to be a forerunner of an unimaginative, flat fundamentalism, uninterested in and incapable of the serious philosophical reflection which has characterised the Church's mission since the Apostle arrived in Athens. Except, that is, for the fact that the Reformation critique of School-authors reflected a tradition already present amidst the theologies of the Latin West.  In How the Light Gets In: Et...

The name comes from Stir-up Sunday's religious roots, with the [collect from the] Book Of Common Prayer historically read on the last Sunday before advent.  "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord," is the first line ... - The Sun ' When is Stir-up Sunday 2018 and why is it the traditional day to make Christmas puddings? '   Stir-up Sunday is always the last Sunday before Advent and takes its name from a prayer said in the Anglican church, which reads: ‘Stir-up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." - Mirror ' When is Stir Up Sunday 2018 ' 23.11.18. This weekend is traditionally known as “Stir Up Sunday”, the last Sunday before advent ... - What's On TV 21.11.18. Stir-up Sunday, always the last Sunday before Advent, takes its name from a prayer said in the Anglican church, whic...

John Shelby Spong.  During my theologically formative years, it was the name which inevitably came to mind when The Episcopal Church was mentioned.  For many of us on this side of the Atlantic, 'TEC' almost became short-hand for Spong's vapid theological liberalism. Yes, not exactly what makes for a happy Thanksgiving. Some experience of TEC over the years, however, brought me to realise that it was a much richer expression of Anglicanism than the meagre fare presented by Spong.  So, from the other side of the Atlantic on this Thanksgiving Day, let me give three reasons to give thanks for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Firstly, it historically demonstrated how Anglicanism could flourish in a radically different political, and social context to that of the United Kingdom.  Wordsworth celebrates this in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets , in 'American Episcopacy': Patriots informed with Apostolic light  Were they, who, when th...

... this means that Anglican prayer in accord with the BCP’s arrangement of Scripture arrives at an understanding that the Church has been inducted into Israel’s praise - she has been “grafted in,” as St. Paul’s metaphor has it (Rom. 11:17); she is piggybacking on those who have preceded her in tasting the Lord’s mercies. Wesley Hill's post yesterday on Covenant is a great exploration of how the reading of Scripture at Mattins in the BCP tradition is "inescapably, and wonderfully, theological".  Hill points to how the context established by the praying of the Venite , the Psalter, and Gloria Patri embodies the Pauline "grafted in". ... the BCP is pressuring those Anglicans (and other Christians) who make use of its arrangement of Scripture to recognize that the God of the Psalter is not other than the God who has made himself known as Father, Son, and Spirit; and, vice versa, that the God who is triune is one Lord because he is not other than the ...

... a sense of habitual native dignity - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. There is a slightly haunting quality to one of the most delightful phrases in Nockles' The Oxford Movement in Context - "native High Church traditions".  In both the pre-1833 Church of Ireland and Scottish Episcopal Church, Nockles sees vibrant High Church traditions.  In the Church of Ireland , this tradition "had its roots in the Caroline era".  In Scotland, it was shaped "by representatives of the Nonjuring and Hutchinsonian traditions". 1833 had, Nockles states, "damaging consequences" for both, as he refers to the "Movement's negative impact on the fortunes of the native High Church traditions".  Above all, both the ritualism and the doctrinal innovations which emerged from later Tractarianism undermined the long existing claims of both the Irish and Scottish High Church traditions to be native to their respective churc...

The best  apologia  for the late modern person relative to the liturgy may be this contemplative, aesthetic dimension that was marginalized in the post-conciliar era. Timothy O'Malley was addressing the consequences of the liturgical movement within the Roman Catholic tradition.  His comment also has relevance for contemporary Anglicanism.  It brings to mind a theme that consistently appears in commentary on the renewed popularity and resonance of Choral Evensong.  For example, consider Angela Tilby's recent article in the Church Times : The music is important, of course, but so is what the rhythm of speech and music does for them: that slowing of the heart rate and breathing, the quietening of the mind, the sense of space and mystery and presence . The Dean of Magdalen College, Oxford, made a similar point in the The Spectator earlier this year: It is perhaps not a coincidence that attendance at traditional choral services started to surge as m...

The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ - Article 27. Yesterday's post quoted from an essay by the late John Hughes which has probably been the work which has most influenced my theological development in recent years - his ' The Possibility of Christian Culture ' (2012).  Hughes critiqued that "significant body of Christian theologians" (Yoder and Hauerwas are mentioned) who have attacked "cultural Christianity": it is my claim that they are implicated in certain novel departures from Christian tradition in modernity and ultimately depend upon an overly angelic anthropology that renders key traditional Christian practices incoherent . Hughes goes on to particularly identify "a suspicion at least or outright rejection of infant baptism". This came to mind when considering some of the responses to a recent post by Psephizo .  One would have thought th...

I think very rapidly Remembrance Sunday is going to take over Easter, if it hasn’t already, in terms of church occupancy. I would imagine that this comment, by the director general of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - reported in The Times - might have some Anglicans worried.  It might add to a certain Hauerwas-like critique of Anglicanism's historic relationship with the state, a critique also associated with traditional Roman Catholic apologetic .  After all, what more reveals Anglicanism as mere cultural nostolgia than Anglican churches having greater attendances on Remembrance Sunday than on Easter Day? Except that this assumption regarding concern for national story interpreted from within the Christian faith is hardly nostalgia.  Indeed, a national story interpreted without the Christian faith would now be secularism.  Therein lies the weakness of both the Hauerwas-like and traditional Roman Catholic critiques of Anglicanism: they are unable to of...

Our bishops today trace their succession to Samuel Seabury ... so our roots really are here in Aberdeen, Scotland. Indeed, Scotland is our mother church - Presiding Bishop Michael Curry . That shared history shapes a strong bond between the SEC and The Episcopal Church in the USA - from the website of the Scottish Episcopal Church . On 14th November 1784, non-juring Scottish bishops consecrated Samuel Seabury as bishop.  Significant?  Yes, it was not insignificant.  Does it make the Scottish Episcopal Church the "mother church" of PECUSA/TEC?  Absolutely not. To begin with, early PECUSA statements make it abundantly plain that Protestant Episcopalians in the newly independent United States looked primarily to the Church of England to define their identity, not the Scottish Episcopal Church. In the 1789 PECUSA General Convention   'Address to the Most Reverend Archbishops of Canterbury and York', it was declared: [W]e are more especially calle...